Well taken was the government’s initiative to introduce a process of parliamentary scrutiny over high executive appointments, in the “traditional” civil service and also in the administrative and regulatory corporations that have greatly multiplied during past decades.

There’s nothing out of this world if the government side is going to have its majority of MPs in the committee that will conduct the scrutiny. One finds it difficult to say how in a parliamentary democracy, it could be otherwise, so long as the meetings of the committee concerned are held in public. And so long as on the government side, members are not ministers, as is the case for the committee which oversees public spending. For if that is done, how can these members oversee the decisions of their comrades in the cabinet?

If this useful initiative is to succeed, two criteria will have to be met. There needs to be some document which defines the rules that the scrutiny will have to observe. It must include matters that relate to thepersonal and professional career of whoever is undergoing scrutiny – as well as to his/her ideological persuasion.

Moreover, right from the start, a full list of the public appointments that will be subject to such scrutiny should be made fully available.

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SPD

The German social democratic party is experiencing its most difficult times since the end of the Second World War. Over the years, it has lost practically half its adherents and has rarely been so demoralised. No matter what it tried to do, it has kept losing votes.

During their last coalition with the CDU-CSU, most of the social reforms that were introduced followed from SPD proposals. Mrs Merkel got the credit for them, even if initailly, she opposed them. That she then lost much of that credit during the refugees saga is beside the point.

I’m sincerely sorry for the SPD. I hope it will soon regain momentum. It always was a genuine friend of the Malta Labour Party, even when it disagreed with our chosen options.

I still treasure a memory of a visit that Leo Brincat and myself made back in 1985 at the SPD headquarters in Bonn. We had there a very cordial and instructive meeting with Willy Brandt.

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No election

One wonders how good an idea it was for the appointments to the governing body of the association of local councils to have been effected by agreement between the parties. Setting aside the process of a democratic election that is established by statute should always be subjected to great reservations.

Granted that this might have been done to reduce the partisan clash between the parties at local level. One can only agree with such an objective. However, one must also take into account the fact that partisan clash is now the status quo. Conflict between the parties is part of local council management. So, as a reason to prevent councillors from coming to their own decision, it hardly makes sense.

The election might have been sidelined to avoid a ridiculous situation like that at the University Students’ Council where one side takes all. Again one can agree that this is a worthy aim. Still, such an objective could have been reached differently.

People do not like at all a situation in which there is too much lurid antagonism betwen the parties. On the other hand, when they see that the parties come too close to each other, they start to suspect that hidden agreements are taking shape to comfort and assist the members of anointed cliques.

Alfred Sant is Head of the Maltese Delegation in the S&D Group in the European Parliament. He was elected as an MEP in June 2014. He is also a member on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and a member on the Delegation for relations with the United States. Read more